Getting There... The story within the life becoming the life within the story

It felt like I awoke slowly. We all have experienced that type of awakening from a sound sleep where your ability to open your eyes is a struggle. When opened, your sight of the room is so blurry everything seems together and there are no outlines to distinguish one object from the other. The sleep is so sound that you give in and no longer try to wipe or rub open your eyes, but decide to lay awake and listen; to slowly awake to the world. The sound you may usually hear clearly, granted the household has stillness, is your clock. You hear the second hand tick for each second so rhythmically loud and clear. It's as if you were in a room taking a standardized test, and the sound you heard with greatest clarity was the clock's second hand ticking because it served as a "reminder.” This would be a great slow "good morning" to the world. One problem, I don't have an analog clock and the ticking sounds too clear, too real, to be a dream...